Maternal Instinct
by Eveylin
Summary: My baby came back home... came back thirty years late.


_Author's note: Response to Lizzy's Margaret fic challenge. Thanks to Lee for constantly checking over it, and all the others._

**Maternal Instinct**

**Summary: **My baby came back home... (came back thirty years late.) Margaret, undefined future. Post IotH.

* * *

- - -

Every hour of her child's life, from the moment he was stolen until the moment he escaped, is on a silver disc. A DSA he calls them, but he will not let her watch them.

He will hold her, and touch her hand as he tells her of some of the things that happened when he was young, but he will not let her watch the discs.

Maybe it's for the better, she thinks, even as she slips the first one in the player.

- - -

Her son is a prodigy; both her sons are prodigies, but the word on her lips and said aloud brings none of the pleasure it did all those years ago. Instead there is bitterness, a quiet rage against God of _why did you make them so brilliant?_

And then, sometimes, _were they too brilliant for me? Is that why you took them?_

There are no answers. There have never been any answers; Jarod is just learning this. He may be a genius but there is still much for him to learn, mostly about the tragedy of human existence.

Jarod is nearly the age she was when they took him from her. There is a cosmic unfairness in the symmetry; something terrible in the strength of his grasp, and the childish hint in his eyes.

She watches him through the camera as he ages. There is precious little but the date in the corner of the screen to mark the passage of time - no birthdays, holidays or Christmas. Her son doesn't grow up, he grows old. His eyes never change, though.

It's not much, but it's _something._

- - -

Sometimes Margaret wonders just what Jarod didn't want her to see.

She hopes and wishes he wanted to spare her seeing him during his 'simulations', but she doesn't believe it. Those he has talked about with her; mentions freely and openly. He even jokes about the things he invented.

It's not that. Not even the bad ones, where he carefully explains how best to 'rescue' a woman, or how to 'protect' a man from assassination.

No, it's not the simulations. It's the parts in-between.

Margaret watches his young self pace nervously in the 'sim lab', fiddling with his tie and preparing to meet his parents. The man called Sydney – Jarod's minder – puts a comforting arm on his shoulder and shows him how to tie his tie. She could almost like this Sydney but for when he comes in and tells Jarod his parents have been in an accident.

She tells herself it is this lie that makes her hate him, not the way he holds her son to his chest and lets him cry, occasionally shushing him and smoothing back his hair.

(Or the way he says "very good," in his accented English and makes Jarod swell with pride, or the Father's Day card, or the Christmas gift, or her son's innocent, "I'll be your family."

No. None of that.)

That, she knows, is what Jarod doesn't want her to see – any of them to see. He knows, somewhere deep inside himself, that while he searched for his real family he already had made one of his own.

- - -

The discs teach her a lot about her son; most probably things she never would have learnt otherwise. She tells herself this is why she never feels guilty.

He did not live the loveless existence she had always imagined in her worst nightmares. He had friends, for a time, and at least one person who loved him unconditionally.

There are other things she learns - smaller things. Jarod loves snow, bores easily, is allergic to pistachios, and will never believe that he can't save everyone. She likes to believe he gets the last one from his father.

(The alternative does not bare thinking about. Which is not to say it stops her.)

- - -

She hears him up at night some times. He says he has insomnia but Charles says he has nightmares. A couple of times she snuck into his room like she did when he was 4 to look at him and smooth the hair on his head, but no matter how quiet she was he always woke up. He never questioned her excuses but she gave up anyway - the panic and flight or fight instinct that overtook him for a moment was too painful to see.

No matter how quiet Jarod is she can always tell when he's got up in the night. Mother's instinct, she thinks with a smidgeon of pride. She's not sure what he does at 2 am – she likes to think he types on his laptop or watches the news, but she's heard his voice low and quiet and knows he's not really watching CNN.

Margaret never got to grill him over girlfriends or trying to sneak in late at night – never had that chance with any of her children. This, she tells herself, sort of makes it okay to investigate her son's phone. It's not snooping so much as being a parent a few years late.

Jarod's top-of-the-line phone is nearly impossible to work. There are menus and sub-menus for everything under the sun, but eventually she finds the address book. She was right; there in the quick dials are 9 numbers. Sydney is just under voicemail, and Miss Parker right under Sydney.

The jealousy that curls in her belly is unfair and irrational. Jarod probably stored these numbers before they found each other again. For a long time he probably only had two contacts.

Later she thinks it's probably for the better she couldn't find his called list.

- - -

There is a stack of red notebooks in his room, and the pile is only growing larger.

Margaret knows she should feel proud that her son is a good enough person to want to save the world one person at a time – and she does, most of the time. It isn't that she's not proud, it's just…

Just…

He never lets her see the note books either.

- - -

Her son is saving the world one person at a time.

It's sort of a full time occupation.

- - -

Eventually she reaches the end of the discs. She has watched her son's life played, for all intents and purposes, in Dolby Sound Surround, but it is not enough. There are parts missing.

She asks him about his pretends, and the years in-between his escape and now, but he is mostly evasive. He will tell her of his desperation to find her _(but never desperate enough to just search as we did for all those years)_ and of the interesting people he met, but never much more.

"What did you _do_?" she asked in desperation, frustrated with half-answers.

"I ate a lot of PEZ," he said reflectively.

There is far more to it than that, she knows. So much more. The man who escaped the Centre and the one who stands before her are two very different people.

The man in the Centre was naive and innocent of the world. He trusted implacably and bruised easily.

Her son is edgy, almost paranoid. He checks dark cars twice, locks doors and windows and keeps a duffle bag at the end of his bed just in case. He has a dozen IDs - just in case - and can tell lies smoother and easier than he ever tells the truth. His eyes are colder, and she's seen the articles mentioning just desserts inflicted upon killers, rapists and the generally evil.

Her baby boy could never have done all that.

- - -

He won't tell her what they did to Kyle no matter how much she wheedles and bothers him.

In desperation she looks for the discs, but finds only broken pieces.

"It's better this way," she imagines him saying, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.

- - -

Though he would never admit it, Margaret knows that staying in one place for so long unnerves Jarod. He stayed in one place for thirty years and now a few months is too much for him to handle.

Her son saves the world one person at a time - goes away on his pretends and comes back weeks or even months later. Each time he does it hurts a little bit more and a little bit less.

There is a routine there now. He drops his duffle bag – different from the one in his room – and hugs her tightly as he did the first time they were reunited. It never ceases to amaze her at how strong her son's arms are, or how grown up he is.

"Mom," he whispers in her hair, and puts a kiss on her forehead.

"My son," she replies, repeating it into the collar of his leather jacket. And maybe, if she says it enough, she may finally believe it.

- - -

**end.**


End file.
